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Israeli
Sonic Booms Agitate Gaza Children
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Israeli
planes cause Palestinian children to feel insecure, to suffer
nightmares and to grow up hating the Jewish state. (Reuters)
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GAZA
CITY, September 28, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As
the Palestinian Intifada marks its fifth anniversary Wednesday,
September 28, the suffering of Palestinian children is still as high
as ever, with nightmares and fear making them bear the brunt of
Israeli psychological warfare over the skies of Gaza as fighter jets
unleash sonic booms.
A
sustained Israeli bombing campaign against what it calls
"militant infrastructure" since fighters launched a new
cycle of rocket attacks Friday – in retaliation to the killing of 19
Palestinians blamed by Hamas on an Israeli missile -- has been
accompanied by routine booms from jets breaking the sound barrier.
"We
haven't been able to sleep for four days. The raids, whether they are
real or not, have a devastating effect on the mental health of my
children," 32-year-old mother Ibtissam Abu Hashem, told Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
"If
we grown-ups are frightened, what can you say about them?"
Overnight,
during the school run and afternoon siesta time, Israeli fighter jets
have periodically roared through the skies fast and low enough to
cause sonic booms that shatter windows and send children running for
cover.
Ten-year-old
Ahmed has suffered from nightmares ever since his school, run by the
powerful Islamic resistance movement Hamas was destroyed in an Israeli
air raid.
"I'm
afraid the Jews will shell our house after hitting the school,"
he said.
Fear,
Revenge
Psychologist
Samir Zaqut works for a counseling program that runs clinics across
Gaza and which have treated dozens of people, many of them youngsters,
freaked out by the sonic booms, according to AFP.
"These
false raids are very bad for everyone, young or old. Nobody can sleep
properly. Children in particular don't feel safe," he said.
He
says dozens of children and teenagers have complained of
"psychological problems" connected to the raids such as
"feelings of insecurity, incontinence, nightmares and
black-outs".
Since
Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, police Lieutenant Colonel Mahmud
Al-Qazzaz charges that the sonic booms have become louder, with the
air force no longer worried about upsetting ground troops and
settlers.
"The
aim is to scare and terrorize all Palestinian people," he said.
Although
the raids cause no physical injuries, they have broken "hundreds
of windows and made cracks in the walls of old buildings," he
said.
In
school, Zaqut says some children can't concentrate, listening
nervously, anxious whether another boom is in the offing.
The
other danger, he said, is that these children will grow up hating
Israel and plotting to embark on attacks.
"A
child's fear and shock provokes a desire to take revenge," he
said.
Asked
about the jets breaking the sound barrier, an Israeli army spokesman
said he remembered planes breaking the speed of sound over Israel when
he was growing up.
"The
reason why we do that is because our planes sometimes have to go over
the speed of sound for operational reasons," he said without
elaborating.
Wednesday
is the fifth anniversary of the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada
against Israeli occupation. A total of nearly 5,000 people have been
killed on both sides, including many Palestinian activists
assassinated by air strikes that often saw the killing of several
civilians in the process.
The
Intifada broke out September 28, 2000, following a provocative visit
by then opposition leader Ariel Sharon to Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Raids
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Carrying parts of Israeli missile that targeted his school. (Reuters)
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Israel,
on its part, marked the Intifada anniversary by escalating and
widening its raids and offensives against Palestinians in Gaza and the
West Bank.
Israeli
helicopters Wednesday launched three fresh raids against targets in
the Gaza Strip despite pledges by Palestinian resistance factions to
end rocket attacks.
On
Tuesday night Israeli artillery had pounded the Gaza Strip and
warplanes struck for a first time.
Apache
helicopter gun ships fired missiles at Fatah offices in Gaza City's
Tuffah neighborhood early Wednesday, while others targeted Palestinian
security offices in the southwest of the city.
At
the same time, Israeli helicopters attacked a building used by the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the Bureij refugee
camp in the center of the Gaza Strip, according to AFP.
Israeli
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, inspecting an artillery battery deployed
along the northern border of Gaza, said it was "not there for
decoration."
He
told reporters: "If we don't have quiet, the terror organizations
will not know quiet.
"If
(Hamas's Gaza chief) Mahmud al-Zahar or Ismail Haniya or any of the
others (Hamas leaders) continue firing Qassam rockets, we will send
them to the place where both Rantissi and Yassin are."
Hamas
founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was assassinated in an Israeli air strike
in March 2004. His successor, Abdelaziz Rantissi, was killed in a
similar air strike several weeks later.
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